The present invention relates to a winged injection needle device having a cover for containing an injection needle after use.
Conventionally, in medical facilities, there have been problems of contamination or infection due to sticking accidents by being stuck unintentionally by an injection needle, a puncture needle, etc. Recently, in particular, since there has been a possibility that such a sticking accident might cause an infection of hepatitis, AIDS, or the like, therefore increasing social attention is being paid to developments of means for reliably preventing such sticking accidents. However, the medical facilities also have to reduce medical expenses, thus delaying the developments of means and methods for preventing the contamination or infection.
Hitherto, there have been proposed various covers and means in order to prevent such sticking accidents from occurring when containing the used injection needles or puncture needles in the cover. Most of such proposed covers aim to safely cover an injection needle without having wings. In the meantime, the present invention is directed to a covering means for a winged injection needle that frequently is used in a procedure such as a liquid infusion, a blood transfusion, extracorporeal blood circulation, or the like.
A winged injection needle device includes an injection needle, a needle base for fixing the injection needle, and a tube connected to the needle base. Most of the means for preventing sticking accidents are formed so that the injection needle and the needle base can move relative to each other in order to prevent sticking accidents after use. Conventional means roughly can be classified into two types: a device having a wing attached to an injection needle or a needle base; and a device having a wing attached to a cover. The injection needle of the present invention belongs to the latter type.
The latter type of injection needle is disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,549,571 A. In a structure of the injection needle device disclosed in this patent, a wing is attached to a hub in which an injection needle penetrates, and the hub is connected to the needle base via a stretchable connection part. Therefore, by stretching or contracting the connection part, it is possible to cover the injection needle by the hub or expose the needle.
However, in the stretchable connection part constituting the means for preventing sticking accidents in the injection needle device of the above-mentioned U.S. patent, practical working property, manufacturing cost, and the like are not sufficiently and specifically considered. Furthermore, there remain some problems to be improved in terms of the entire configuration of the injection needle device, for example, simpleness of the structure and easiness of manufacture.
It is an object of the present invention to solve the problems of the prior art mentioned above. That is, the object of the present invention is to provide a winged injection needle device satisfying the following three conditions: (1) it is possible to contain a used injection needle safely and easily; (2) a structure is simple and the manufacturing cost is low, and (3) a used injection needle device can be disposed of sanitarily.
In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the winged injection needle device of the present invention includes an injection needle; a holder holding the base end of the injection needle and having a through hole in communication with the injection needle; a tube through which a liquid medicine can flow; a connector connecting the holder and the tube so that they are in communication with each other; a cylindrical stretchable member capable of stretching or contracting in an axial direction, one end of the member being connected to at least one of the holder, the tube and the connector; and a cylindrical protector through which the injection needle passes, the protector being provided with a wing and being connected to another end of the stretchable member. In the injection needle device, the stretchable member is stretched or contracted so as to slide the protector to change its position with respect to the injection needle within a range including the position in which the tip of the injection needle is completely contained in the protector, whereby an exposed length of the injection needle exposed from the protector can be changed into a desired length, and the stretchable member itself can maintain a certain stretched or contracted state.
According to the above-mentioned configuration, the exposed length of the injection needle can be changed freely and its state can be maintained. Therefore, users do not have to select injection needles having a different length depending upon injection sites or other factors. Thus, the injection needle device can been used extremely easily.
It is preferable in the above-mentioned configuration that the stretchable member has an accordion structure. With such a configuration, functions required for the stretchable member can be attained easily.
It is further preferable that the stretchable member is made of polyolefine.
It is still further preferable that the stretchable member has an accordion-structured part and has a stretching ratio, which is a ratio of the length of the accordion-structured part stretched to the maximum with respect to the length of the accordion-structured part contracted to the minimum, in the range from 2.5 to 3.6. With such a configuration, the force required for stretch or contraction of the accordion-structured part can be optimized and a length of the needle tube or a hole diameter of the accordion-structured part can be set to a necessary and sufficient size.
It is still further preferable that a difference between the stretched length and the contracted length of the stretchable member is larger than the maximum exposed length of the injection needle. With such a configuration, the injection needle reliably can be contained in the protector.
It is further preferable that the wing is rotatably attached to a cylindrical part of the protector. With such a configuration, the angular relationship between the injection needle and the wing optionally can be adjusted without affecting the stretchable member in use, and the direction of the needle can be selected when sticking the needle.
It is still further preferable that a cavity diameter at the tip of the protector is 1.1 to 2.0 times the diameter of the injection needle. Thus, such a configuration facilitates maintaining of the tip of the injection needle when sticking the needle, and sliding of the injection needle when it is covered and contained.
It is further preferable that the tip of the protector is provided with a means for preventing the re-protrusion of the injection needle contained in a cavity of the protector.
It is further preferable that the connector has a first part and a second part, the tube is fitted onto the outer surface of the second part, the holder is directly or indirectly connected to a cavity of the first part of the connector, and the stretchable member is fitted onto the outer surface of the first part of the connector. With such a configuration, it is possible to reliably fix the stretchable member and easily manufacture the device.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a winged injection needle device includes an injection needle; a holder holding the base end of the injection needle and having a through hole being in communication with the injection needle, an anchoring member provided on the holder; a tube in which a liquid medicine can flow; a connector having an engaging part capable of engaging the anchoring member provided on the holder and connected to the tube, a cylindrical stretchable member capable of stretching or contracting in an axial direction, one end of the member being coupled to at least one of the tube and the connector; and a cylindrical protector provided with a wing through which the injection needle passes and coupled to another end of the stretchable member. In the injection needle device, the stretchable member is stretched or contracted so as to slide the protector to change its position with respect to the injection needle within a range including the position in which the tip of the injection needle is completely contained in the protector, whereby an exposed length of the injection needle exposed from the protector can be changed into a desired length. Furthermore, the holder and the connector are not connected to each other in an initial state, and they are irreversibly connected to each other by contracting the stretchable member so as to engage the anchoring member of the holder with the engaging part of the connector.
It is preferable that the connector is a hollow cylinder and has a catch on the inner surface, the anchoring member includes a pair of elastic legs and each of the tips of the elastic legs is provided with an engaging latch, and the inner diameter of the connector is larger than the external size of the tip of the engaging part and smaller than the external size of the engaging latch.
As mentioned above, according to the winged injection needle of the present invention, it is possible to prevent sticking accidents by being unintentionally stuck by an injection needle after a user finished a procedure on a patient. Consequently, it is possible to avoid the infection or contamination caused by sticking accidents. Furthermore, since the cover containing the injection needle can be disposed of sanitarily, the contamination and/or infection of persons other than the users can be prevented. In addition, the winged injection needle device of the present invention has a simple structure and can be manufactured at low cost, and therefore it can be widely used for medical instruments.